


(i love you in the same way) there's a chapel in a hospital

by PrinceDrew



Series: better off against worse for wear [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Brief Original Male Character, Family Reunion, Fractured Relationship, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Poetry, Recovery, Sequel, Sibling Bonding, Smoking, They ALL Deserve Happiness, Zoe-centric POV, connor lived au, finding yourself, original child character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 02:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/pseuds/PrinceDrew
Summary: Because the truth was Zoe had grown used to Connor's absence long before he left. His stays in rehab or mental wards, even just his general desire to be far, far away from people had led to her to accept his lack of presence long before it had been permanent.But she had never fully accepted the idea that he was gone. She just kept waiting for him to come home. Because the truth was people don't get used to people not being there, not really. They just get used to the permanent state of waiting for someone who won't come.The truth was she wasn't ready for him to come home.---On his 23rdbirthday, five years after he went missing, Connor returns home. And Zoe doesn't want to think.(Sequel fic toone day we'll get nostalgic for disasterand taking place beforeyou're someone (who knows someone (who knows someone i once knew)).)





	(i love you in the same way) there's a chapel in a hospital

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I should take a break from fanfiction  
> Me, two weeks later: fuck.
> 
> Also, a quick word here: Zoe Murphy is a very, very personal character to me as someone who had similar circumstances to canon in regards to brothers, let's just say. As in, I read a fanfic set in canon, thought I was okay, and 20 minutes later I was sobbing and basically just breaking down. So I don't know if I wrote Zoe or if I wrote me. So I'm sorry if I didn't write her well.

The truth was that Connor didn't even seem like a real person anymore to Zoe.

There was still evidence of his existence, of course. His room, still with that stupid sign hanging on the shut door when she went home every weekend, as if there was still a reason for people to be warded off. The occasional emails and calls they'd get from the police or from the website, regarding updates on the missing person case that was so close to becoming cold. The sessions she spent with the college counsellor, who looked closer to sending her to a real therapist each time she left.

But he wasn't there. So he didn't seem real.

It wasn't as though they talked about him either. They never did; not when he went first missing, not when a year went by, not even now, five years on. Or if they did, it was never named. Always ‘he’ and ‘him’, always ‘our son’ or ‘your brother’. Never his name.

Never on his birthday, either. October 4th wasn't a good day. It hadn't been a good day for years, long before he left. Didn't stop Cynthia from trying. Didn't stop her from buying a cake each year, funfetti or Victoria sponge, chocolate or lemon, even though Connor hadn’t even liked cake -

No. That was wrong. He did like cake. He liked ice cream cake, but they stopped having that when he was twelve.

The current cake - a marble one topped with chocolate chips all arranged artfully around the edge, already cut in equal slices - was staring Zoe down as she tried to annotate a poem.

’But the truth about my heroine and her heroin,  
Her awful ugly poisoned apple heroin  
and my awful ugly Snow White heroine,  
is that her beloved heroin has destroyed my heroine,  
And my heroine and her heroin  
are destroying me.’ 

‘Snow White’ was an allusion to a fairy tale heroine, ‘awful’ and ‘ugly’ contrasting the typical view of such, a tonal shift from the earlier stanzas. Semantic satiation of the words ‘heroin’ and ‘heroine’, definitely playing with the fact they were homophones. Allusion to poison apple combined with Snow White suggested the Heroine didn't take heroin willingly the first time, hinting at the idea she had a troubled history.

She just had to spin that and the rest of her notes out to two thousand words and compared to some song about drugs and that was one essay done.

‘Pop Songs and Poems: A Comparison of 21st Century Verse’ wasn't Zoe’s favourite class exactly, but she did enjoy it. Even if she didn't need it to be a music teacher, it was still interesting, even if half the time her professor decried ‘the fall of pop music as we know it’. It helped that Lawrence Hansen was actually a good writer, or at least could keep things interesting. Her favourite poet if she was held at gunpoint and forced to name one. He was supposed to be giving a talk at her college soon.

Maybe she could compare it to that pill in Ibiza song. Or ‘I Can’t Feel My Face’? Depends on which one she could find more connections with.

It wasn't as though she had to use ‘heroine and her heroin’ though. Any poem from ‘to my half-loved boy’ would do. One of her friends, Lea, was comparing most of the book to so-called ballads, emphasis on ‘the coward’s way bridge’. Someone else was going to do how the titular poem made the reader feel as though they were the half-loved boy and how most modern ‘love songs’ did the same things.

“Have you not had a slice of cake yet?” Cynthia asked, carrying in folders of what was no doubt charity work. She had picked that up in the past three years, claiming it helped to combat empty nest syndrome as if Zoe wasn't home more often than a high schooler. Zoe suspected it was more to do with the fact her therapist had recommended it, but still. It made her happy, working with homeless and disadvantaged children. Stopped her from drinking. Some of them even stayed over one time, Larry even taking a cautious interest in one that watched whatever sport was playing on TV with him.

“I'm waiting for after dinner,” Zoe told her as she drew circles around each fairy tale allusion she could find. “Don't want to ruin my appetite.”

Truth be told, she wasn't that fond of cake either. It was too… too cake-y. She still put on a happy face and had a slice or two for her birthday, but other than that, she tended to leave it.

“It's only lasagna,” Cynthia murmured, sliding all the files onto the dining room table. “Cake goes bad easily, you know. The amount we’ve thrown away over the years…”

And then she started humming as she busied herself, a tuneless melody that Zoe had grown to memorise over the years. Cynthia had a good singing voice. She just didn't use it much anymore, just keeping to humming or short little snippets of song. Larry had begun complimenting her on it more often, encouraging her now again, songs from their early days together. It helped he worked more at home than his office now, retirement slowly being set into motion. It wasn’t perfect but it was… it was better than in high school, at least.

“Go on then,” she said, putting down her pencil. “Just one slice. Have you asked Dad if he wants one?”

“Take a slice to him anyway,” Cynthia said, smiling and smiling. She was better, nowadays. Didn’t drink as much as she used to. “He’s in his study. Let me just grab some plates from the kitchen and -”

_\- knock, knock, knock._

For a moment, neither of them moved, then Cynthia frowned.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked, and Zoe shook her head. “I’ll see who it is, then. Probably just a salesman…”

She left the room, muttering under her breath about how they needed some kind of sign for this. Zoe returned to her annotations. There had to be todestrieb in there somewhere - it practically everywhere in this collection. She registered the sound of the front door opening, expecting the low polite denials her mother was good at, but that wasn't what she heard.

She heard _shrieking_.

Fear - pure and essential in a way that she hadn’t felt for years - pierced Zoe like an icicle, invading her every vein and artery and then she was off, she was running to the front door, phone in hand, she could hear Larry as well, calling for her mom and there she was, crying and -

\- she was hugging someone, who was hugging her back, pale hands with angry red scars stark against her dark cardigan.

“Oh my god, you’re alive, you’re alive,” she was sobbing, her mother was sobbing, she hadn't sobbed in so long. “My boy, my baby boy, oh god, you’re _alive_.”

“Careful, careful, don't squash Zinnia,” and Zoe could recognise that voice, could recognise it even it was smaller and rougher and not-all-together.

“Cynthia?” Larry ventured, taking a step closer, hand placed on Zoe’s shoulder, heavy and grounded. The white hands from Cynthia’s back vanished, and she turned, smiling like it would hurt to otherwise, cheeks and eyes red, tears escaping down her cheeks. And there, just behind her, standing on their driveway, was Connor, and strapped to his chest was a very small baby.

For a moment, Zoe’s eyes met Connor's. And then he looked away, eyes darting to behind her, to Larry, before looking back at Cynthia.

“He's home,” Cynthia whispered, her voice breaking. “He's home, Larry, he’s home.”

None of them spoke. None of them moved. The baby strapped to Connor - was that his? - gurgled a little.

Larry cleared his throat, hand disappearing from Zoe’s shoulder. “I'll let the police know,” he said, voice faint and not sure. “Uh. Welcome home, son.” And then he disappeared, and then it was just the three - _four_ , the four of them, standing in the threshold of the Murphy household. 

“Come in, come in,” Cynthia murmured, turning back to Connor, taking his hands in her smaller ones. “Have you eaten today?”

“I had Burger King for lunch,” he mumbled, one arm coming around his front, as if to shield the baby. “I - I’m not that hungry, Mom. And, uh, I have Eva -”

As if on cue, the fluffiest and smallest dog Zoe had ever seen peeked its head over the doorstep, peering into the house, looking poised to start whimpering. Cynthia glanced at it for a moment, then at the baby, and Zoe just watched.

“A baby, a dog, you could have brought home a whole circus and I’d take them all in,” she told him, tugging him inside. He stumbled a little as he did, the dog following him into the house. “Come on. We have cake in the dining room, that’ll do you until dinner’s ready.”

And then he was in, Cynthia still pulling him, dog at his heels as they went passed Zoe, Connor glancing at her as he passed, but silent, still silent, and then she was alone in the hallway. All she did was just stay there, shivering.

They’d left the front door open. The breeze was getting in, so she shut it, but not before standing there, looking at Connor’s car. It wasn’t the same as five years ago, but why would it? Why was she expecting to see a brand new red car, and not the small, black and streaked with dirt, filled with boxes and clearly secondhand car that she saw?

When she went back into the dining room, Larry was there too, at the head of the table, leaning against a chair telling them that someone from the police station was coming down. Connor was sat in front the cake, looking like a six-year-old being told off at his own party, the dog on his lap, the baby in Cynthia’s as she sat next to him. He was staring at Zoe’s poetry book, frowning, and she took this time to look at him. 

Had he always dressed in layers like that? His clothes were bulkier than him, even with all of the layers off and resting on the chair he sat on, almost swimming in his jumper. And his hair, that was definitely - no, no it wasn’t. He had long hair just before he left. He was jumpier, that was for certain, shifting every two seconds, eyes flicking back to the baby and then to the dog - his dog, it was so very clearly his dog, he called it Eva - every so often, biting his lip.

“...I guess you want an explanation,” he said at last, still not looking at them. His voice - it hadn’t always been that quiet, that beaten. From where she was standing in the door frame, she could see dark circles surrounding his eyes.

“I want you to eat,” Cynthia insisted, pushing the cake closer to him. “You can dress in as many layers you like, but you can’t hide the fact you’re thin as anything. Just one bite -”

“I’m not hungry,” Connor mumbled, eying the cake in front of him. “I just - I’ll wait for dinner.”

“Connor, sweetie -”

“Let him say what he needs to, Cynthia,” Larry said gently. “I’d rather hear it now from him than from the police.”

Cynthia bit her lip, but nodded, still with the baby in her lap. It was too quiet, that baby. Weren’t they all meant to make noise? It hadn’t even gurgled once, just kept blinking every now again, gaze focused on Connor.

“...s-so,” Connor began, still not looking at anyone but Eva. “I uh. Okay. I’ll just uh - the important bits. I’ll tell you all the important stuff.”

“Take your time,” Cynthia said, and Zoe wanted to scream, scream _he was gone five fucking years isn’t that enough time he doesn’t need more he’s home with a fucking baby and you tell him to take his fucking time -_

But she kept quiet. Just clenched her fists and kept her eyes trained on him.

“No, it’s - just rip the band-aid off, right?” Connor asked, rubbing the back of his neck. Larry hadn’t said anything about Eva yet. “So, uh. I - I went to Vermont -”

“Vermont?” Larry asked, frowning. “Why Vermont?”

“Did you think of looking for me in Vermont?” No one spoke. “Exactly. But, uh, yeah, Vermont. Uh, I managed to live on my own for a while, and when money ran out, I - I ended up moving in with this - this girl, and - and she’s rehab now, at the moment, but - but we - yeah. I uh. That - I - and then we - before that -”

His words began slurring over each other. His eyes wide, and he was shaking, one hand just stroking and stroking Eva, scars red and stark against his skin.

He hadn't always that pale. Zoe could remember that now.

“Connor,” Cynthia said, her voice hushed, placing her hand over Connor’s, gently taking hold of it. “Is this baby yours?”

He nodded, and finally shut his eyes.

“What’s her name, eh?” she asked, still hushed, still gentle. “Do you want to hold her?”

A gasp like a man about to fall to his death, and Connor’s head shot up, eyes almost fluttering. He looked at Cynthia, only Cynthia, and nodded, his eyes almost brimming with tears. She passed the baby over, Eva hopping off Connor’s lap and settling at his feet, and the baby laughed as Connor almost snatched her up, cradling her close to his chest like she was only one who mattered. 

“Zinnia,” he murmured. “Zinnia Ella Murphy. She’s - she’s eleven months old, her birthday is the fifth of November, and - and I know, she doesn’t look it, b-but - but -”

“Preemie?” Cynthia asked, and Connor nodded again. “Oh, like father like daughter then. She’ll catch up.”

“The doctors say she’ll be disabled,” Connor murmured. “She - she’s already behind, and I trust her doctors - and - and she’s not going to catch up, Mom, she’s not and -”

“And that’s okay, that’s okay,” Cynthia said, reaching over to brush aside some of Connor’s hair, tucking it behind his ear. “Connor, sweetie, that’s _okay_.”

“...can I ask why you’re here?”

She thought Larry had said that until she noticed Connor gazing her at, half trembling, his mouth open, and Cynthia frowning.

“Zoe -” she began, but Zoe just went back in.

She had started, after all. Might as finish it.

“I mean...you were in Vermont,” she said, not moving her stare from Connor. “That’s a whole other state. It seems you were pretty set on not coming back.”

“ _Zoe Andrea_.” And that was Larry, that was definitely Larry’s voice with disappointment heavy in his voice.

“No, no, she’s…she’s right,” Connor said, but it had dropped back down to a whisper. He was staring at her back, eyes almost boring into her as he searched for something. “I - I wasn’t planning on coming back. Not at first. But - but then all the bills started piling up - she had so many hospital visits those first few months, so fucking many - and I couldn’t keep up and - and - we ended up evicted, so - so - so -”

“You’re here now,” Cynthia murmured, and she was pulling Connor close, she was hugging him. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters. Even with a baby and dog - Eva, was it? - you’re here, you’re still my baby, we still love you.”

Did they?

Connor started to sob then, head burying into Cynthia’s shoulder, and Zoe tried to remember the last time she had seen Connor cry. It was always anger, always rage, always fury that marred her memories of high school, always something cold and raw and primal in his eyes.

Twelve. The last time she had seen him cry was when he was twelve, but she didn’t know why. He had seen her approaching, and disappeared into his own room.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Connor sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I - I’m just - sorry, fuck, I’m so sorry -”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Cynthia shushed him, one hand coming to stroke his hair. “That doesn’t matter right now. You do.”

Larry cleared his throat, Connor… not exactly jumped, no, but certainly startled, though he didn’t move, head still buried in Cynthia’s shoulder, arms still cradling his daughter. “Do you need some help bringing in your stuff?”

Connor did jump at that, his head whipping around to stare at Larry.

“I...I can stay?” he ventured, and there it was again, that urge to scream, _what the fuck do you think why would you come back if you didn’t even think you’d be able to say why why fucking why are you here -_

But she had said enough.

“Of course you can,” Larry said, frowning, she could hear it in his voice. “Why wouldn’t you? You - you’re our son, and you - you have your own kid now. We’re not going to throw you out when you’ve just come home.”

And that was enough, Zoe surging forward to grab her poetry book and pencil, and then was gone, up the stairs, in her room, door slammed, books dropped, and then she was there, collapsed on her bed that smelt of cheap perfume and generic laundry detergent, head buried in her pillow, trying hard to ignore the sobs forcing themselves up her throat, the tears that brimmed her eyes.

It wasn’t fucking _fair_.

Because the truth was Zoe had grown used to Connor's absence long before he left. His stays in rehab or mental wards, even just his general desire to be far, far away from people had led to her to accept his lack of presence long before it had been permanent. 

But she had never fully accepted the idea that he was gone. She just kept waiting for him to come home. Because the truth was people don't get used to people not being there, not really. They just used to the permanent state of waiting for someone who won't come.

The truth was she wasn't ready for him to come home.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that. Down below, she could hear them, but not well, not clearly. Murmurs and shuffles, a knock at the door and then it closing a while later. Then it opening again, and the sounds boxes being brought in. They grew louder and louder, finally merging into the distinct voices of her father and brother, talking just about what to put where, how the crib - fuck, that’s right, Connor had a kid, she was an aunt now, Aunt Zoe - was put together, why was this so clear?

Oh, right.

Her room was next to Connor’s.

Well, wasn’t that the cherry on fucking top of the ice cream sundae?

Even that stopped after a while. The TV was on, some sports from what she could tell, and she stayed in her room.

Maybe it petulant. Maybe it was childish. She didn’t give a shit. She just wanted to be anywhere but there.

Sometime later, there was a knock on her door.

“Who is it?”

“I brought you dinner,” her mother’s voice answered. “And some cocoa and cake… am I okay to come in?”

“Go ahead,” Zoe said, pushing herself up from the bed, moving so that she was sat on the edge rather than curled up in the middle. Her mom already had to deal with one mess her children were today, she didn’t need to cope with the other.

She pushed the door open, stepping in and placing the mug and plates on Zoe’s side table.

“Everything okay?” she asked, even though she never brought cocoa when she thought it was. Zoe just shook her head, her tongue too heavy to speak, and Cynthia smiled at her without happiness, perching on the bed beside her.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured, and then she was hugging Zoe. “Oh, sweetie, I know you don’t… I know this hard.”

Don’t cry. Whatever you do, Zoe Andrea Murphy, do not cry.

“I know this isn’t what we planned,” she continued, one hand pulling Zoe close, the other rubbing at her back, up and down, up and down, like she was five. “I know we didn’t expect him to ever come back and I know… I know he wasn’t the best to you. We weren’t the best to him, or to you.”

He wasn’t the best to her? No fucking kidding.

The best to her wouldn’t have been just abandoning her when he went to middle school and she was still in elementary. The best wouldn’t have been years of screaming at her for showing the slight concern. The best wouldn’t have been just up and leaving on his eighteenth birthday without a single word.

Connor never gave anyone his ‘best’.

“But he has gotten better,” Cynthia continued, still hugging Zoe. “He’s willing to try, he’s been to therapy and he has medication that actually works for him - remember the anti-depressants? He was telling me about it, and… and he is a father. You should see him with Zinnia, he’s not going to leave us again. And Zinnia’s the sweetest thing - you’ll love her, I promise. And…” She pulled away then, but her arms were still around Zoe, even as he looked into her eyes. “And I’m not going to promise that it’ll be perfect, especially not for a while. But it can be good, if we all try, okay?”

“Okay,” Zoe echoed. She just wanted to go to sleep. “Okay, Mom. Okay.”

Cynthia just stared at her for a moment, biting her lip. “If you want, you can start staying in your dorm at the weekend -”

“It’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll try for you.”

And Cynthia smiled at her, like it was only the two of them in the entire house. “Try for yourself more than anyone,” she told her, pulling her back into a hug. “You know I love you, right? You’re my little baby girl. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Mom,” Zoe said, holding her for a moment, two, before letting go, Cynthia holding on for a second more, before kissing Zoe on the forehead and leaving her alone in her room, telling her to call for her if she needed too.

The first thing Zoe did as soon as she was sure she wouldn’t be bothered again was open her window. The next was reaching into her side table drawer and pulling out a lighter and a half-empty carton of cigarettes.

She didn’t smoke often. She didn’t try to make into a habit, not like Cynthia had with wine. She wasn’t like Connor. It was just…

It was just when things seemed like too much, it was something to do. Something that filled her mind without really doing so. Something that made her feel good.

The first time she had smoked, it was in her car after school, with a pack of cigarettes Connor had left behind, because life had just seemed all sorts of shit and it wasn't getting better and it was right there and -

And she had liked it.

She still bought the same brand as she did then, even if at first she had to con a few senior friends into getting them for her.

Balancing one between her lips, she perched on her windowsill, lighting it and taking a drag. It wasn’t an instantaneous good, jitters still edging her insides, but they were smoothing out, slowly but surely.

_Knock, knock, knock._

“Who is it?” she asked, keeping her gaze focused on what was out of the window. It was dark now, dark enough that the streetlights were on, golden lights stretching over the town into the night.

“It’s… it’s me,” Connor said, voice still small and rough. “Can we… can we just talk for a bit?”

“...come in,” she said, but she didn’t move, just listened to the door open and shut as he entered.

Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.

Why was he here?

“...you shouldn’t smoke,” he said at last.

“Like you’re one to talk,” she murmured. “What age did you start? Eleven? Ten?”

“I was in sixth grade,” Connor replied, sighing. “Look, Zo I just… I’m… How’s college?”

College. Like he was Aunt Andrea and not her brother. _College_. That was him trying? At least it was a safe topic, if nothing else.

“It’s… it’s okay, I guess,” she said, shrugging. “I have friends, it’s stressful, I head back up about lunch tomorrow so… it’s okay. I study music.” When she turned to look at him, he was nodding, but not looking at her, eyes focused on that poetry book again.

“Guess you’re not around too much then,” he murmured more than anything. “Uh, look, me and Zinnia, we’re right next door, but if she… if her crying starts to annoy you, we can always move down to the downstairs guest room and -”

“If I want you to move, I’ll tell you,” she told him, and he just kept nodding, before taking a deep breath and raising his head to meet her gaze. 

“Zoe, I’m…I’m sorry,” he began, one hand coming round to hug himself, his fingers clutching the loose wool of his jumper. “For… for everything. How I treated you. It… It was shitty of me, and… and I’m going to try to make up for them. And… and maybe coming back without warning was still shitty of me, but I… I don’t know.” There was something in his eyes, something she hadn’t seen for years. It was there the first time he had been yelled at, and the first time he had tried to leave home when he fourteen.

“Okay,” she said, before taking another drag of her cigarette.

“Oh - Okay?” He was still staring at her.

“Okay,” she repeated, looking away. “I… Look. I can’t just… I can’t just forgive you, Connor. Not right away. Not when you've just come back. You’ve just… done too much to me for that. I get you have a shitty brain and need medication but.. you know. Maybe someday. Yeah?”

Maybe she should have smiled at him. But a smile would have said things she didn’t want him to hear.

“Yeah,” Connor said. “That’s… that’s fair. Um…” He nudged the poetry book Zoe had dropped with his foot. “Do you… like Lawrence Hansen then?”

Zoe shrugged. “He’s better than most other poets I’ve read. We have to study him in this one class because he’s a modern poet, but you know. He’s good. I think he’s coming in to give a talk next week, but don’t quote me.”

Connor nodded, and took another a breath, but seemed to think better whatever he was going to say, keeping quiet just a moment more as he just stood there, biting his lip.

“...Is there anything else?” she asked. Another drag. She should have brought one of those plates over to use as an ashtray.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, still working his lip with his teeth. “Uh. Evan. Evan Hansen. I need to -”

Even at just his name, the fury was there. Not as strong as it used to be, but still there, still raw and pure and boiling in her, fists clenching.

_“C-Connor - I-I told Connor he could - t-to run a-away.”_

“Don’t fucking mention him,” she snapped. “Just - Just don’t, okay? We go to the same college, but I don’t talk to him, and I don’t want to. If you want to get back in touch with him, fucking email him or something!”

“Zoe -”

And he sounded so soft, so nice and gentle and kind and so not Connor that something snapped in her.

“Just - just get out,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette on her window sill. “I've had enough tonight.”

Connor stared at her for a moment, but then ducked his head, nodding. “Okay,” he murmured, and then he left, shutting the door behind him.

Zoe ended up going to sleep early, and left before lunch. She didn't look at either Connor or Zinnia, calling out a generic goodbye to the half-empty house, filling the hour-long drive back with generic pop songs because she didn't want to think.

At half one, after stopping at the local alcohol shop and getting vanilla flavoured vodka, she walked into Eric’s messy and cluttered office. Eric looked up for one moment, shaggy black hair falling in front of his eyes, before groaning, burying his head in his hands.

“Zoe, sweetheart,” he began, “I love you. I really do love you. But I'm a college counsellor. Not someone you can use in place of a therapist. I have other students to see -”

“I brought you alcohol,” she told him, placing the bottle on his desk. He considered this for a moment, before reaching for the bottle.

“You get ten minutes,” he said, putting it in his bag as Zoe sat down. “You know, my partner can tell when you've been to see me. They say I have a Zoe face. You hear that? I have a Zoe face, because you've been in here so much. I never wanted a Zoe face. I didn't ask for this. I never asked for this.”

“Life sucks, huh?” Zoe asked, pushing the potted plant he kept on his desk away from the edge.

“Eh, been better.” He settled down, one hand propping his head, the other tapping at his desk. “Yours?”

Well. Best rip off the band-aid.

“You know my brother?” Eric nodded, looking as interested as feigning interest could get you. “Well, he came home. With a baby.”

Eric blinked twice, his mouth dropping open for a moment, before he closed it, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, shit.” Because he knew.

Her visits to Eric had been… too regular, in all honesty. But he was there, on campus, easy to slip too without her parents ever having to know. Even if he got sick of her visiting, he’d still never shut her out. They had slipped into something too close to be really professional, but not close enough to be friendship. He was easy to talk to.

But that meant he knew a lot about Zoe. It meant he knew a lot about her family.

It meant he knew a lot about Connor.

“How… how are you taking it?” he asked, shifting, back straight, head up, glasses back on, in a mode she hadn’t seen for a while. Therapist, I’m-trying-to-help-as-best-I-can mode. “Emotionally, I mean.”

Zoe shrugged, drawing her knees best as she could with the chair being as small and old as it was. “I… I don’t know. I’ve just been kinda… I don’t know. My mind’s been… not me, I guess. He - he apologised, but…” She shrugged again, biting her lip, playing with the end of her hair. “It’s weird. I - I didn’t even consider he even would come back.”

Eric nodded, once, twice, before sighing, covering his face again. “I’m not…” he muttered, before pausing. Then he was back, staring at Zoe, his mouth set, gaze steeled.

“Okay,” he began. “Zoe. I'm going to ask you a very simple question, and I don't want to see you here until you've answered it. Or you see a therapist. Preferably both.”

She nodded, already knowing that she wouldn’t do that. “Okay.”

“What do you want?”

What?

“Huh?” She blinked at him. This wasn’t… wasn’t how he acted. Not normally. Not to her.

“It's simple enough,” he continued. “What do you want? From anything? Your brother, your father, your life. What do you _want_?”

What...what did she want?

“I…I don't… Eric, I -”

“I thought as much,” Eric sighed, before opening a drawer and pulling out some paper, holding it out to Zoe. “Here's. A list of all the good therapists I know of in a two hour radius. Try calling one.”

Zoe took it, the sheets of paper not feeling right in her hands. “I… Thank you, I guess.” And Eric’s face softened a bit.

“I’m only trying to help you here,” he said, looking away. “But… but I’m not trained to deal with your issues, Zoe. You need someone who can help you more. I’m only one person. Just don’t be a stranger, yeah?”

“I won’t,” she told him. “Enjoy your vodka.”

And then she left him, papers tucked away in her bag as she walked back to her dorm. Lea shot her a look as she entered, but didn’t say anything as Zoe collapsed on her bed and went straight to sleep.

She awoke to the sound of texts barraging her phone.

‘Mom: I gave Connor your number, sweetie, I hope that’s okay. Keep hanging in there - we’ll all go out together for a meal on Friday when you get back!’

Okay. A meal. She could handle a meal.

‘Unknown Number: this is connor’  
‘Unknown Number: [sent a photo]’  
‘Unknown Number: dad took to eva better than i thought’  
‘Unknown Number: [sent a photo]’  
‘Unknown Number: also is it just me or does zinnia look like mom as a baby?’

Of course she did. Of course Zinnia looked like Cynthia, because Connor was closer to Cynthia in terms of genes than a first glance would reveal, and of course that would pass down to his kid.

Zoe didn’t want to think about that too closely.

The truth was, Connor and Zoe weren't that far apart in age. Thirteen months, Zoe a November birth with Connor just barely October. And Zoe had been big for her age whereas Connor was small, so for a long time they were the same, at least when they were younger and Connor hadn't hit his first growth spurt. Sometimes, when she looked at the baby photos, she couldn't tell them apart.

What had happened to them?

They got bigger. They got older. Connor’s head started fucking him over. Zoe fell somewhere and when she picked herself Connor was nowhere in sight.

A lot of things happened.

The photos were cute enough. The first was Larry, Eva in his lap, the dog asleep as he grinned at the camera. The second was of Cynthia, laughing as she held Zinnia, looking as young as she did in her and Larry’s wedding photos.

‘She does’ she replied to Connor, saving his number, sending off an ‘okay’ to Cynthia and went to class. She answered texts from them on and off throughout the week, ignoring the concerned glances her friends gave her. She ended up handing in her essay early, having compared ‘heroine and her heroin’ to ‘Chandelier’ in the end.

She didn't see Evan Hansen once. So it was a good week for that.

On Thursday evening, Lawrence Hansen came in.

It was a talk exclusively for the Literature students and those who took ‘Pop Songs and Poems: A Comparison of 21st Century Verse’, which was, to be fair, mostly Literature students. Apparently, it was just to talk about his ‘literary journey’, which honestly just sounded like an hour of just talking about himself, but still. Lawrence Hansen. It sounded like it'd be good.

He was only talking though. No autographs or anything like that. They were recording it for YouTube, but that was about it.

In truth, no one really knew anything about Lawrence Hansen aside from what was in the book. He was queer, mentally ill, and lived in Vermont with his pet dog. Even then there were debates over whether or not that was true, with a small sect of people who were sure it was a pen name, some kind of false identity.

She didn't know what to think, in all honesty. She just liked his poems.

As she waited, she scanned the contents again, eventually turning to ‘for better for worse’. It was one of the few not addressed to the half loved boy - and she had seen a few critical discourses over that, over how every other person in the poems weren't associated with love in the same way the boy was, as if he didn't admit every other poem he was in love with him - instead addressed to his family.

’wedding vows are promises  
and promises that aren't just made to your partner  
and they're made to your family  
and i broke them all.

we broke them all.’

And then he went through the vows, a stanza each, how they were all broken, how each one of his family - mother, father, him and his sibling - broke them. It was one of his longer ones, more sprawling, less edited maybe than his others. She preferred it over his family ones, especially over ‘a sister for a stranger’.

It hit a little too close to home, that one. She had cried excused herself from that lecture and cried in the bathroom, unsure of why.

Silence began to fall over the lecture hall, and she glanced up, shuffling back into her chair and closing her poetry book. One of the professors - not her’s, it looked like the head of the English Department - stepped in front of the podium, saying this and about how it was a great honour to have Lawrence Hansen - the ‘new voice of your generation in poetry’, whatever that meant - here at their college, how he spoke to thousands of people across the world, would you please welcome him to the stage? As they all clapped, some more enthusiastically than others, the professor disappeared, Lawrence Hansen emerged, walking a bit too straight, his fists at his side, hair tucked behind his ears and in a ponytail, smiling a bit too much as he stood before the podium, shuffling the papers there, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Lawrence Hansen was real.

He was real, he was there, standing in front of a crowd of two hundred-odd students, and it was real, he was real, and it was so good that he was there and -

And -

No. Fuck, god, no.

And that was Connor. Even with glasses and his hair tied back and in a blazer and shirt and all the little tics in the world, it was Connor. She may not have seen him for five fucking years, but she knew her brother.

She knew Connor better than anyone.

“Um, hello,” he began, and that was him, it was his voice, she knew her brother’s voice. “It’s uh - it’s the first time I’ve done an event like this, so I apologise if it isn’t spectacular. My understanding is that it’s being recorded for youtube, so I’ll just… try my best with this.”

Why was she cold? The lecture theatre was heated, she shouldn’t be frozen like this.

“I’m meant to talk to you today about my ‘literary journey’, whatever that means,” he continued, gaze focused ahead. “But there’s something more in that, that I want to discuss here today, and that’s the idea of recovery.”

He straightened his back a little, lifted his head. He talked with his hands a lot, when he was lecturing like this. She wondered why she had never noticed that before.

“Recovery isn’t something we talk much about nowadays,” Connor said, his tone becoming more even, “and I think there’s something wrong with that. We live in culture where sadness and suicide are romanticised, and recovery seems impossible, as if a diagnosis is the end all and be all of treatment. Diagnosis becomes reasons, but reasons become excuses and all of a sudden we have a new epidemic of kids swallowing pills, or stepping off bridges, or cutting open their wrists.”

He stopped then, eyes scanning the crowd. Did he see her?

“But it’s not impossible. Recovery should not be seen as this thing only select few can obtain, available only through medication, because I’ve _been_ there, I know how damaging that mindset can be. But I’ve come back from that, I’m here, I’m alive, I have a daughter and I’m not perfect, but I never will be and that’s okay.”

‘And that's okay’. It was okay. Zoe never asked for perfection. She asked for a brother.

“…when I was younger, I never thought I’d make it to see twenty,” Connor told the crowd. “At this moment, as I stand here, I am twenty-three. The person I was five years would have never imagined this. He would never have imagined I'd be alive, much less a published poet - an idea he would have scoffed at - giving a talk in front of a lecture hall. He was sick, and desperate, and one bad day from swallowing a handful of pills and let them take care of him.”

…was there a bottle they missed? She could remember, just after Connor went back to the mental ward after his stomach was pumped, she could remember Larry going through every room in the house, finding all the medicine they had, practically ransacking Connor’s room and finding blades, and then locking them all away in a box in their bathroom cabinet.

Did they miss one?

“On my 18th birthday, I ran away from home,” he recited, as if giving a police statement. “If you read my book, which… is probably all of you, come to think of it, you’ll know. You’ll know a lot about me that I haven't even told my family. Like the fact I’m gay, for instance.”

A chuckle rippled through the crowd, and all Zoe could think was _but you have a daughter._

“Technically, all of you in this room are more educated than I am,” he continued, as if they hadn't laughed. “I'm a high school dropout - I only obtained my General Education Diploma after I had sent off my first poem to the Plath Poetry contest. You see, I started writing poems as a way to recover. I - I had a friend, you see, and every day he had to write a letter to himself, explaining why it was going to be a good day. So, when I found a therapist I liked and could work with after two years of searching, I asked her if I could do something similar. And she told me to try writing poetry. And because I wasn't the eighteen year old me, because I was the slightly better and medicated and trying to be better twenty year old me, I gave it a go. And it worked. Not perfectly, because nothing is perfect, but it did. My literary journey is one that's tied to recovery, and it'll never not be that way.”

He paused again, taking a sip of a bottle of water Zoe didn't even know he had.

How had he not seen her? It wasn't like she was hidden. Fuck, she was sat right next to the middle aisle, wasn't she in his direct line of sight?

“I'm still recovering,” he told the audience. “I’m one of those people who'll probably never stop recovering. I recently returned home, and… and it's better than I'd hoped it be. My mom’s taken to my daughter and we’re all trying. We’re all recovering. And just before we have to go to Q and A, I’d just… I’d like to just say something that’s... that's been on my mind a lot."

And then he looked - he looked straight at her, as best as he could, head tilted upwards, gaze straight ahead, trying, trying to connect with her.

She just gazed back at him, and he looked away.

“You… You can't be a perfect person, because the perfect person does not and will not ever exist,” he stated, after taking a deep breath. “You can only be the perfect version of you, and that is a real person with flaws, with mental illness, with scars, with disabilities with a hundred other things considered to be not perfect, and that's okay. You shouldn't be a perfect person. You - You should be you.” He looked back up then, blinking rapidly. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, and it got lost in the roar of applause from the audience.

He was good. He was so, so good, no fucking wonder he was published, fuck, just fuck, why this?

She watched as he stepped away from the podium a moment, her phone buzzing a moment after.

‘Connor: i’m sorry. meet me in the car park afterwards?’

Fuck sakes, he even typed like a poet, all lowercase and punctuation.

‘Sure’ she sent back as he stepped back up to the podium, smiling, though not as wide, not as perfected as before.

The Q and A went by quickly. It was mostly questions based on his poems, what technique he had used and why - “Guys, guys… did you miss the part where I said I was a high school dropout? I didn’t even know ‘todestrieb’ was a thing.” - but there were a few about other things, such as Eva and Zinnia - “Lesson learned, next time I’ll bring them in.” - and how he was doing, but before she knew it, Zoe was sat on the pavement in the car park, lighting a cigarette as she tugged her scarf and coat closer around her, waiting.

Maybe it was like Cynthia and alcohol, her smoking. She claimed it was to help her nerves too, before it got bad. Before Larry stepped in and got rid of all the wine and Cynthia was sick all the time and Zoe could hear her her night, crying about how _“I just want to forget him, Larry, is that so bad?”_ and -

And that was before she got better. Before she recovered. 

Maybe it wasn’t impossible that Connor had too.

She heard his footsteps long before he spoke. She didn’t turn to him, just kept her eyes focused ahead. Just kept on smoking.

“Hey,” Connor began, voice a little rough again.

“Hey,” she echoed hollowly. “Guess you’re a famous poet. Would have been nice to know that. Wouldn’t have wasted my evening if I did.”

Was that too harsh? Or was it just right?

“Don’t… don’t be like that, Zo,” Connor said, and then he moved, sitting down beside her. He pulled out a cigarette of his own, lighting it, and then they were just sat, side by side, smoking together.

He had taken his hair out of his ponytail now. The blazer was off, the shirt untucked, the glasses folded away in his pocket. He looked more like Connor now.

“...so you’re gay,” she began, because it was something better than college, but it was safe, it was something.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I - uh. Well. I’m not really attracted to anyone like that but - guys. I fall in love with guys, yeah. That - that okay?”

In the grand scheme of things? Connor liking guys wasn’t going to be something she’d hold against him. He’d done so much more that she could.

Like being Lawrence fucking Hansen and not saying anything.

“I mean, I always kinda thought it but…” She shrugged. “But you brought home Zinnia. I’m guessing she’s with Mom at the moment?”

“Yeah,” Connor replied. And then, “What - What do you want from me?”

Her grip went, and her cigarette fell to the ground. She didn't move to stamp it out.

“What?”

“What do you want from me?” Connor repeated, his tone stronger now, more - more bold. “Zoe, what do you want me to do? I'd said I’ll make up for it, but I don't know how you want me to. And - And I can't try if you don't meet me halfway.”

In high school, in middle school, even in elementary, Connor wasn't the one who wanted to meet halfway. 

He groaned, collapsing forward, face covered by his hands, cigarette still burning. “I mean,” he continued, “if you want minimum contact, then that’s fine, we’ll be like Mom and Aunt Andrea, seeing each other every other year and making it a living hell, we can do that, fuck, I’ll do it for you. But don't like. Don't give me nothing to work with, Zo. It's not fair to either of us.”

She sat for a moment. Connor was shaking, but he lifted his head back up and took another drag of his cigarette. Smoke billowed between them, dragged along by the late evening breeze.

“I want,” she began, looking away. Best to just… jump in, she guessed. “I want to know you again. Like how I used to.”

Silence, for a second. Then Connor dropped his cigarette, and crushed it, and she looked at him.

“Let me tell you,” he said, voice shaking.

She nodded. “Okay,” she murmured. “Okay.”

And he told her, with shaking hands and unsteady voice. He told her.

He told her about therapists and psychiatrists, about how getting his diagnosis made him cry because he finally understood why he was the way he was. He told her about how he settled for average, before meeting his last therapist by chance and starting getting as better as he could.

He told her about Chloe, Zinnia’s mom, and how she was nice, at first, and how they slept together because Connor needed a place to live, and how she seemed to value both church and heroin equally. He told her about how she ended up in rehab, due out soon, and he ended up suing for Zinnia’s custody.

He didn't tell her everything. She knew that much. But he told her enough.

By the time he had finished, her cigarette on the ground had burnt itself out.

“…I’m sorry,” she said at last. “That you had to go through all that.”

He shrugged, biting his lip. “It is what it is,” he murmured, glancing at Zoe. “Can I just - ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“What - What happened between you and Evan?”

Oh. Of course. Of course he'd want to know what happened.

What happened is that after Connor left they became friends. What happened is they started hanging out together at lunch, in the library, because the rest of the school seemed to suddenly know them both. What happened is they grew close over her junior year.

What happened is he told her truth.

“I…I’ll tell you someday,” she told him. “Just…not today, yeah? Not now.”

“Okay,” he murmured, nodding, and she remembered he was in nothing but a shirt and trousers. Was he not cold? “Uh, Zo?”

“Yeah?” She slipped her coat off, and tucked it around his shoulder. It was better than nothing, even if it was a little big on him.

“Why…” He swallowed, and looked away, but tugged Zoe’s coat tight around his body. “Why is there diazepam in the bathroom cabinet? Y-Y’know. Valium.”

Oh. Well. He would have noticed sooner or later.

“Mom was on it for a while,” she told him. That, and a bunch of other pills they didn’t even try with him before she… well. Got better. “But not anymore. I guess they didn’t throw them out when she got taken off them.”

He was quiet for a moment, shivering, eyes still blinking rapidly.

“... a lot happened, didn’t it?” he asked, his voice quiet. “After I left.”

“A lot happened to you,” Zoe replied. “I mean, you got published, Mr. ‘Voice of Mental Illness of Our Generation’.”

Connor groaned at that, but he was smiling, not much, not too much, but just enough. “Oh God, remind me to never do an event like this again if they’re gonna call me that,” he muttered, but nudged Zoe as he did so, as if they were old friends in a silent comedy. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

A smile tugged at her lips, and she let a chuckle slip out. How long had it been since he told a joke? One of the last presents she ever got him - before she gave up and resorted to cards and cash and sharing with Cynthia - had been a joke book.

“I don’t know, why did the chicken cross the road?” she asked.

“So it could live in a world where people didn’t question its choices in life,” Connor told her, and it wasn’t hilarious or anything, but it was a joke, _Connor told a joke again_ , and she started to laugh, and then he was laughing, and then they were both cackling together in the car park of Zoe’s college and -

And it felt all right. It felt okay. But it didn’t last, and soon they were back to - to not quite silence, but quiet.

Then she remembered.

“You need a therapist again, don't you?” she asked, reaching into her bag. She hadn’t really touched it since Sunday, using her laptop for notes instead.

“It…it'd help, yeah,” he said, watching her as she searched, her fingers brushing against crumpled sheets of paper. “I need other people like a paediatrician for Zinnia but Mom said she’d sort something out… Why?”

She pulled out the sheets, and held them out to him. “Here. The college counsellor gave this list to me but I think you need it more than me at the moment.”

His hands were shaking as he took them from her, scanning the papers. “I - I just…” He trailed off, eyes still blinking, almost shining in the low-light provided by street lights. “Thanks, Zoe. For - For this.”

“It’s no problem,” she said, and then, “It’s - it’s late, Connor. We’ve been sat out here for ages. You need to get back for Zinnia.”

And whatever spell there was broke.

Connor started shifting, pulling out his phone, checking the time.

“Oh shit, you’re right,” he said, scrambling to stand up, only to pause once he did. “Your coat -”

“Keep it,” Zoe told him, standing up as well. It was a little ridiculous, how much taller he was than her. Weird to think she used to be the same size. “We’re meeting up tomorrow, remember? Mom wants to go out for a meal.”

“Shit, that’s tomorrow?” He kept biting his lip. He’d bite right through it and end up with an infection if he didn’t stop. “God, I don’t have a babysitter for Zinnia -”

“Mom adores her,” she assured him. “We’ll end up at a family restaurant just for her.”

“You think?” he asked.

“I know,” she told him, and then gave him a small shove. “Go home. Go back to your baby and your dog, and like, work on your next poem or something.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, smiling like he wanted to. “See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow,” she promised, and watched as he walked away, with her coat still around his shoulders, walked to his car and got in, pausing only to wave her goodbye before disappearing inside, and she watched as he drove away, 

Maybe it’d all be okay someday. Maybe they’d be happy with one another again. Maybe she’d be a good aunt and he’d be a good uncle and they’d be good with each other.

Maybe they’d recover.

\---

‘my stranger of sister and my sister of stranger  
i want you to know this if nothing else:  
if i could grow to know you again  
i’d only do it if you would.’

**Author's Note:**

> Connor's recovery speech is... something I've had on my mind a lot recently. The idea of getting better. Recovery is not impossible guys, and I hope you know that.
> 
> I'll admit, it starts stronger than it ends. This was planned to be a longer, four-part chapter fic, but I like it as a one shot. I still have my original plan for that idea, so maybe I'll return to it someday. But it is what it is.
> 
> Also: this series is about the length of a novella?? And the total time it took to write all of these is... 6-8 weeks which is insane. Someone help me.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this fic! If you have any questions, liked the fic, have feedback or noticed any mistakes, post in the comments below, or at my tumblr [here](http://princedrewwrites.tumblr.com). I'm getting better at using it, I swear! Or, if you just liked the fic and don't want to say anything, just leave a kudos. There's no pressure either way


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